


In the Hollow Spaces

by pagination



Series: The Endless Order [2]
Category: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Sandman (Comics)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-02-17
Updated: 2007-02-17
Packaged: 2017-12-15 06:17:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/846272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagination/pseuds/pagination
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are screams. Someone is screaming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Hollow Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the season 6 episode "Blind Spot."

  
  
Someone is hammering a spike through her head.  
  
Vertigo grabs and yanks her feet from under her. It dimly registers that she's upright, but she can't make herself care. Pain. Her world is pain.  
  
There are noises somewhere, like someone is choking. It doesn't matter.  
  
Awareness slips away.  
  


***

  
  
There are screams. Someone is screaming.   
  
Her arms are cold and on fire at once, as though they've been drenched in ice water and gasoline. Her jaw aches. Her mouth is too dry to swallow. Her head still pounds, but it's not quite as painful as before. She tries to open her eyes, and feels her eyelashes scrape against something. Random synapses collide, and spin dizzyingly. A word emerges: blindfold. She is blindfolded.  
  
It confuses her. Her head hurts. She opens her mouth to ask someone to turn down the volume down, but there's something in her mouth and this is important, somehow, but she can't remember why, can't quite care--  
  
She tastes bile on the back of her tongue. She pushes it down. She tries to lift her head. Agony stabs through it.   
  
Consciousness opens the floor beneath her and drops her into oblivion.  
  


***

  
  
Her arms ache, her ribs ache, her back aches, her head aches --  _Concussion_ , a cool, dispassionate part of her diagnoses -- but the noise is worse. The sounds. The screams. It's endless, endless: crying, choking, whining, whimpering. Sounds that go on and on without sense, without reason.   
  
Sometimes they falter, sometimes they stutter to a halting, gasping pause, but then they start again, stealing her breath and drilling into her mind. Even the fog of apathy can't stand long against those sounds. It begins to tatter under the onslaught, shredding with each fresh, bubbling gasp and whimper. Panic lives on the other side of indifference.   
  
She clutches the numbness to her, muffling her senses with it to deny their reality. She feels detached from her body. Lighter than air. Numbness is dispassion; dispassion is room to think. (It hurts to think. Ignore it. Ignore it.)  
  
They learn tricks for memory, on the way from the Academy to the gold shield. They learn on the beat how to lead the witness to recollection. How to shorthand notes into a story. How to ask the right questions to get the right answers. Enough to fill a report, at least. Who, what, where, when, how. Interrogation, real interrogation, comes later. The art of reading someone is more than an afternoon seminar interrupted by a boxed lunch and coffee.   
  
If Bobby were here, it would be distractions and slight of hand, questions about things in the past interspersed with questions about the present. Watch the eyes, to see how they work: which way they twitch when memory is retrieved; which way they go when lies are created. She plays the straight man to his comic, asking the direct questions while he teases out their tells and leads their attention astray, like a man taunting kittens with a feather on a string.   
  
His way is not better. It's only different. Sometimes the shortest distance between A and B is a straight line.  
  
 _"What's the last thing you remember?"_  
  
Car drive. Radio. Dougie's tricycle on the street -- veer to avoid that. Park. Bag out of the trunk. Keys--  
  
 _"What were you thinking?"_  
  
...Shoes. New shoes.  
  
 _"What made you think of shoes?"_  
  
Mail-- junk mail. Sale on shoes. Looking at the mail, which meant inside the house already. You never let yourself be distracted when you're opening the door. That's when you're vulnerable, when your attention isn't on your surroundings. Always pay attention when you're opening your doors.  
  
That's where she was attacked. Inside the house, where she felt safe, on her own turf.   
  
The empty birdcage bobs through memory, that split-second between distraction and realization that something was wrong. Pain hiccups through her head again. Stars pinwheel nauseatingly across the black. Fear leers at her through the thinning veil of indifference, its face distending and stretching the fabric.  
  
 _"Where are you now?"_  
  
Air needles her skin. Dust clogs her nose (blood, piss, sweat, fear, pain and something familiar, something masculine that she has smelled before--)   
  
 _"Where are you now?"_  
  
Something squeaks in the background, metal chafing without lubrication, like the chirp of rats. Someplace cold. Someplace that echoes. Uncovered walls, thick, likely with no windows. Hard floor.   
  
 _"Where are you now?"_  
  
The sounds that ricochet around her lack the hollowness of true space. The room is not too small, but neither is it too large. A storeroom, or a basement.   
  
Echoes of screaming. Screaming.  
  
God, the screaming.   
  
 _"Help me,"_  she says into the silence of her mind. Numbness is slipping through her fingers.  
  
She gets no reply.  
  


***

  
  
Understanding bumps at the corners of her mind, lurking just out of sight behind the nausea that comes from thinking too hard. She moves too slow to catch a glimpse (or doesn't want to, same difference) so she lets herself not care; lets herself go slack on whatever it is that holds her up. She dozes fitfully through the pain, fading in and out of consciousness, and waits for it to come. She's used to waiting.  
  
When it comes at last, it comes as a blow out of the dark. It crushes her under its weight, and with it comes a fear that annihilates and rends, robbing her of air and hope and life and wit.  
  
Sebastian has her.  
  
For a moment, she's thankful for the gag.   
  
Her heartbeat and breathing quicken, chasing the panic so hard she's afraid her chest will explode. Adrenaline careens through her. Someone is dying. She's a cop and someone is crying and suddenly all she can think is,  _Don't stop, don't stop, don't stop,_  because if it stops -- if those screams stop altogether and do not start again -- it will be her turn.  
  
Terror claws and scrabbles, frantic.   
  
Don't stop. Don't stop. Don't stop.  
  
It doesn't stop.  
  


***

  
  
Time stretches, endless and merciless.   
  
Sebastian's time.   
  
He takes it.  
  


***

  
  
They learn, as cops, to fight the urge to blame the victim. It's a hard lesson to learn. It's human to despise the weak; to ally yourself with the strong, who are untouchable. Cops are by nature people who act, not people who are acted upon. The dogs that guard the flock are only one step removed from the wolves that hunt it. Dog and wolf are both predators, circling prey. They have more akin with each other than with the sheep.   
  
She hates that person screaming in the dark.   
  
In the blackest part of her, the shamed and shaming heart of her, she hates that other woman for being weak. Hates her for being there. Hates her for being a victim. Hates her for her noise, her stupidity in being caught, her inability to be strong under Sebastian's knife. Hates her for being someone she can't help.  
  
Hates her most of all for the inevitability of a death that will make it her turn next.  _Shut up and die,_  she demands, even while she orders,  _Live. Live. Live._  Because one more scream is one more second for her, one more moment to exist and breathe. She thinks, to cover that savage, roiling desperation,  _If you survive, someone will come for us_. And underneath that, a mean, ugly little voice whispers,  _If you survive, it won't be my turn yet._  
  
One more scream. One more second of another woman's agony, in exchange for another second of her own life. One endless, eternal, tormented life, measured in the heartbeat panicking under in her throat, in the rasp of breath that stabs her with fresh pain.  
  
Fear stinks. It has a smell, a presence in the room like the beating of great, putrid wings. It fills her lungs and chokes her. This is not how she is meant to die. Her skin prickles, damp with sweat. She shivers and swears it's from the cold, not from panic.  
  
Vertigo spins her again. Self-contempt blocks her throat.  _"I'm sorry,"_  she says to that other victim.  _"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."_  She's shaken with a pity that's almost like grief.   
  
 _Liar,_  Despair chides, and squeezes her heart between fat fingers.  
  


***

  
  
The cotton in her mouth keeps triggering her gag reflex. It worries her. If she chokes on it, if she breathes it in--  
  
 _An easier death than Sebastian will give you,_  a silent voice whispers.  
  
She rebels against it, and wrestles with her tongue to push her gag against her teeth. The relief she feels at accomplishment is disproportionate to the deed.   
  
 _That was foolish._  
  
 _"Fuck you,"_  she answers, and that other voice falls silent. For the moment.   
  
She wrestles with possibilities, and sees all futures leading to torture and degrading death. Time stretches and frays, full of holes. Her pulse is no counter to measure it by. She pictures the report they will write when they find her body. Pictures how her partner's will bow over the keyboard.   
  
Bobby. It is almost enough to make her cry. She can feel the prickle of tears (ridiculous) start under her eyes, and blinks hard against her blindfold to refuse them. He moves through the shadows of terror like a warm light, and breaks her heart in two.  
  
Bobby will come for her. Her partner will save her. The thought spins out of hopelessness like a rope and she clings to it, wrapping it around herself out of need and desperation.   
  
 _He does not know that you are missing,_  the voice says.  _How will he find you?_  
  
 _"He'll come."_  
  
 _How?_  
  
 _"He'll come."_  She squeezes tight and forces away doubt. Forces away reason, too wracked to risk facing it.  _"I'll last until he comes."_  
  
Her silent companion says nothing. It has no need to. Logic won't be unseated for long. For now, her head aches, and that will hold reality at bay for a time. If she concentrates on the pain, she won't have to think about how unlikely rescue is. She won't have to think about Bobby staring at recordings, hands empty of answers, lucid and dreaming on the apron strings of a lunatic.   
  


***

  
  
She has thought about dying. She has thought about the statistics regarding cops and mortality. Statistically, it is not likely that she will die on the job. She has never expected to die on duty. The possibility of being invalided out or injured in the line has always loomed larger. She has thought about those statistics, too.   
  
Most cops go their entire careers without once firing their guns on the job. She is no longer among their numbers. Most cops go their entire lives without once taking a life.  
  
She is no longer among their numbers, either.  
  
She tells herself that if she has thought about that, about being one of the unlucky few who have fired and killed, it is mostly to remind herself that she was justified and that they were both good shoots. ( _Liar,_  the voice says.) She is not the first to fill the walk-on role in a suicide-by-cop. The attendant guilt has to be less than Logan's. At least she has never killed one of her own.  
  
 _There is a great deal of similarity between the thought processes of policemen and the thought processes of criminals,_  the voice says.   
  
Variations on a theme is how they get them to confess. Measure the smaller evil against the greater, and criminals will unburden themselves to a receptive ear. "I may have shot that clerk, but I ain't no  _junkie._ " "I killed my girlfriend's kid, yeah, but I'm not a  _pedophile_."  
  
 _"Shut up,"_  she says.   
  
Guilt fondles Justice under the table. Roads not taken. Shots not fired. If she'd paid more attention when she'd walked in that door. If she'd realized more quickly that someone was there. If she hadn't come to a predator's notice by gunning down two perps.  
  
If she wasn't Robert Goren's partner.  
  
She is exhausted by  _what if_.  _"Bullshit,"_  she says, and tries to believe it.  
  


***

  
  
Fear is tiring. After a while, she forgets to feel it. She hangs from her restraints, wrung dry. There is no energy left to be afraid.  
  
Little things. Little things begin to nag her. The feeling of fabric sticking to her skin. The twist of her underwear, where it digs into her hip. The tickle of a hair that has become plastered to her nose. Eventually it won't matter. Eventually, Sebastian will make it meaningless.  
  
In the meantime, an itch in her lower back is close to driving her crazy.  
  
Death looms, horrible and degrading, but discomfort is the bigger bitch.  
  


***

  
  
Eternity passes. Reality stretches thin, transparent enough to see the future. The screaming begins to change pitch, going higher, thinner. The pauses are longer now; the voice is no longer human, but animal (the words she could almost hear, bubbling, wet shapes of vowels under the whine of dying are gone, long gone) and there is nothing there, no mind, no will, nothing but the screaming and the pain and the screaming and the pain and the screaming and the pain....  
  
...And then it stops.   
  
She's frantic for a moment; thinks she has lost her hearing as well. Her lungs rattle. Her chest constricts too tightly for her to draw in an easy breath. For an instant, the silence throbs in her ears, made out of cotton and thick, scratchy wool. And then it clears.  
  
No. No. Once more. Scream once more. Live. Live. Live.  
  
Please.   
  
Silence answers.  
  
She was wrong about fear. She can still feel it, after all.  
  
Next victim.   
  
 _Your turn._    
  


***

  
  
There are other sounds, sounds she has been trying not to hear: ugly, wet, thick sounds, like scissors cutting wet leather, like raw meat being tenderized. Her memory supplies more detail than she needs, bringing back the bodies they've already seen. Her imagination puts her face on each of them, and paints her partner crouching beside them with his fingers on their flesh. Bobby will touch those open wounds next; will rub the blood between gloved fingers.   
  
Cops tell stories about the connection between partners. They are the stuff of legend, revered like tales of marriages that have outlived the ages. An unraveling, giddy part of her wonders if Bobby will be able to sense her association through the dead woman's body. Perhaps he'll sniff at it. "I smell Eames."  
  
She clamps down hard on hysterical laughter. The gag helps.  
  
She stretches on her tiptoes, her muscles burning as though coals have replaced them, and gasps for air. Behind her, a curtain rattles on its pole. She can hear the rustle of movement: one body in motion, dragging a weight from one place to the next; the scrape and tear of tarp.   
  
Something opens -- a draft of air washes across her, drawing out a fresh, sharp shudder -- and then closes.  
  
And now she is alone.   
  
 _What will you do now?_  the voice asks. It is distantly curious.  
  
 _"Whatever it takes,"_  she says grimly back.  
  


***

  
  
She can't feel her fingers anymore, but if she moves them, she can find them, like phantoms of themselves. Metal bruises their tips. She grips hard and stretches, pushing her weight off her wrists. Something wet trickles down her arm. Even through the numbness, she can feel where skin is rubbing off.   
  
Her fingers manage to trace the shape of what is holding her: identify it as a loop of thick metal, rounded and smooth. She turns, to see what give she has, and finds if she raises herself onto her tiptoes again, metal will squeak and turn with her.  
  
Lefties loosies, righties tighties. She rotates once, fully, then holds her breath and listens for reaction.   
  
Nothing.  
  
 _He is disposing of the body,_  her silent companion says.  _He will arrange it someplace where it will be found. Someplace conspicuous, so that his murders will gain attention. And now he has you, so he will not need to risk himself by looking for a new victim._  
  
She turns again, carefully, listening to the squeak, struggling to find some hint in the sound that something is happening beyond the friction of a metal joint in a metal socket.   
  
 _Your partner will be called in to examine the corpse. He will wonder where you are, but he is a man of duty, so he will make some attempts to contact you, then continue with his work. It will take a day or two for them to realize that you are missing. He will go by your house and find everything as you left it. If you are fortunate, perhaps he will find signs where Sebastian broke in._  
  
She imagines that. She imagines Bobby noticing her absence, because her absence throws him off-kilter, as though gravity has reversed itself and the sun has learned to travel east. She imagines Bobby noticing her absence, and then going about his routine, worried still but concentrated until the mystery on his desk eats what is still free to wonder.   
  
She imagines him at her funeral, because they will find her body. Sebastian will see to that. It will be a closed-casket funeral. Sebastian will see to that, too. Ross will pull him off her case, because the last victim was his partner -- too close for any cop to keep a clear head, and Bobby gets too involved, too close. It won't matter. Bobby will continue hunting her killer, because it's Bobby, and it's Sebastian, and it's  _her_  6-feet under with an honor guard to fold the flag. She sees him matched through another partner -- who? Logan, perhaps, now that Barek is gone? (and a part of her laughs drunkenly at the thought: Bobby and Logan partnered together, a nuclear holocaust of a nursery tale. She can almost -- almost -- feel sorry for Ross if that happens; Ross, who wanted her to keep Bobby under control, senior detective,  _my ass_ )   
  
She will be reduced to a file, a case number and a statistic. An object lesson for future rookies: never let down your guard. Even without the uniform, cops can still be targets. Already she feels herself diminished by it, flattened into two dimensions.  
  
 _Life will carry on without you,_  the voice says.  _Eventually, people forget the victims._  
  
Except for Bobby, who will not forget, because he's Bobby and the edge of brilliance he wields like a scalpel comes with a cost to stability. The pursuit will become an obsession. He will spin out of control without her to frame his world, unraveling strand by strand until he is Declan Gage -- he is already so close: the breadth of a mirror away -- continuing down the path he began before her time.   
  
And she blames him. Blames him for being safe. Blames him for not having her back when she needed him to be there. Blames him for being Robert Goren, who moves like an oiled fish through the puzzle that will kill her. Blames him most of all for becoming someone who will fail her, at the end.  
  
Knowing it is irrational, knowing it is wrong: still she blames. There is an endless supply of blame, almost enough to equal the supply of despair. It's sweet, in its way. It drives out the fear. She is filled by it, shaken by it, steadied by it.  
  
She turns.  
  
 _This is foolish._  
  
And turns.  
  
 _There is no hope of escape._  
  
And turns.  
  


***

  
  
There are sounds somewhere, over the squeak of the metal. She stops turning (can't tell if she's facing the way she started, panics again, if he sees, if he sees-- but the light was slanting this way under the blindfold, yes, just turn a little more, like so and then stop, stop, did he hear?)  
  
He's in the room, then. She can hear the door's whine as it opens; can feel the push of air as it floods in with him. She listens to each step and wonders in a strange, calm corner of her mind how many times this has played out before. How many victims have opened their eyes in the dark and counted the footsteps to their bed, their closet, their hiding place, hoping against hope that if they pretend to be asleep, if they pretend to be gone, if they pretend to be invisible, those footsteps will move on?   
  
She has held those victims. She has spoken rote sympathy and asked her questions and moved coolly and efficiently through the process of justice for them. But not of survival. That has always been someone else's task. One white card -- _"Victim Services is waiting just outside to talk to you,"_  -- and a referral before she can move gratefully on to the answers that are waiting.  
  
The irony is so thick, she could suffocate on its dregs. She counts footsteps and feels hollow, as though despair has carved out her insides and left her empty, light enough to float.  
  
 _No hope,_  the voice whispers, and it sounds replete. Peaceful. Something slithers in the dark.  _This is where it ends._  
  
Something inside shrivels and dies. Some wall of defiance crumbles and falls. No hope....  
  
Her phone rings.  
  
It almost stops her heart.  
  
Even suspended between heaven and the grave, she automatically reaches for it. Muscle memory is thwarted by restraints and metal. Someone is looking for her. Someone misses her.  _Too late._  Not too late.   
  
The phone rings. Gloved fingers slide under the gag around her face and pulls it down. Dry lips crack. Air chokes her, fresh and sharp. The taste of old blood is metallic and thick on her tongue. She gasps for breath. It is possible to be grateful, even now, even for this. The phone rings.   
  
Cold metal touches her cheek.   
  
She does not need to see it to know what it is. She is familiar with its work. Terror blooms like a flower in her mind. The world goes white and red. All of it, all of her, every sense and thought and function she has focuses on that sharp tip digging into her skin, following its trail down her face.  _No hope. No hope. No hope._  
  
He wants her to scream.  
  
No.  
  
She swallows it, almost chokes on it, feels it sink like a boulder into her stomach and push out against her ribs, too big for her body to contain -- but she can't close her mouth, can't keep it from yawning, aching, gaping, stretching, opening wide around the sound her mind is making for it, a sound that will rip through walls and doors and hurtle across miles to where Bobby sits, Bobby, Bobby, where are you come quick Bobby come quick I need you because I don't know how strong I am I don't know how strong I can be help me Bobby I need you help me help me _help me_ \--  
  
Despair sighs in her ears.  _Victim,_  it says. Metal slides across her skin. Not hard enough to draw blood. Hard enough to promise pain. She can feel his frustration. Selfish. Academic.  
  
Her breathing is ragged and broken, each inhalation like swallowing broken glass. Anticipation is worse than the first cut. She will not give him the satisfaction of speaking, but the words beat a frenzy against her teeth, a soundless shriek.  _"Do it, you fucking son-of-a-bitch."_  And under it, a child's whimper, _"Daddy--"_  
  
Metal digs in. She closes her eyes....  
  
...And then, suddenly, the blade is gone. And Sebastian is gone.  
  
He is gone, and she lives.  
  
She  _lives_.  
  


***

  
  
Urgency pushes her now, biting sharp, razor-edged chunks out of her heart. Sweat makes the darkness under the blindfold hot and humid. Her skin is slippery under the cloth. She rubs her head against her arm and feels the blindfold just begin to give. It's not much, but it's a start. Her pulse rattles in her throat. Hope is a hardy little spark, once lit. It pushes her to rub again, to rub again until the blindfold has been dislodged and dim light burns her eyes.   
  
To be able to see is almost like freedom.  
  
The room is small and cold, cluttered and empty at the same time. It looks utilitarian, like an apartment building's cellar. She expected a torture chamber: stains on the floor, knives and scissors hanging from the walls, tools for human suffering laid out for easy convenience. It shouldn't surprise her, that evil should look so banal, but it does. In spite of all experience, some childish part of her still expects evil to look like evil, still wishes for the body to reflect the soul.   
  
She looks up. Blood trails down her arms, where duct tape has dug too deep into her flesh. The metal that hangs her proves to be a hook. The open end of it is too high for her to pull her wrists over. If she had any breath to spare, she would almost use some for a laugh. Sebastian has a flair for accessorizing. A butcher's hook for his next butchery.   
  
She balances herself on her tiptoes, sends up a panting prayer, and turns.  
  
 _What do you hope to accomplish?_  the voice asks.  
  
She turns.  
  
 _You are a victim,_  it says.  _It is not your responsibility to escape._  
  
And turns.  
  
 _This effort is meaningless._  
  
For an eternity, she turns. The strain on her legs' stretch up is less than it was (is it? She hopes, she hopes, measuring the gap between life and death in millimeters.)  
  
When the hook gives at last, she almost doesn't survive it. It pops out of its joint with sudden violence, smashing hard into the concrete floor even as she is sent sprawling. Her legs have forgotten how to bear all her weight. The sound of her arms released from their stretch is a scream; it blazes hot through her eyes, finding an outlet where her throat refuses it passage. The jog to her head makes her stomach heave. She retches once, then bites it back, hard, and tastes blood in her mouth.   
  
Time, stretched like elastic through the long, black night, snaps back and recoils. There is none left now. No time. No time to think. No time to be afraid. No time for triumph.   
  
She curls for a moment, blinded by the blood singing again through forgotten pathways. The floor bruises her shoulder, but it is only one more minor pain in a conflagration of greater ones. No time. No time to feel frantic. No time to revisit terror. She uses her teeth on the restraints around her wrists, barely tasting the glue that mingles with sweat and blood on the tape. The dryness of her mouth gives way to a gush of saliva. Her heart and her lungs expand like new animals being born, clawing at her rib cage to crawl out into the day.  
  
There is still tape left around her wrists, but the maddening certainty of Sebastian's return brings her to her feet. Rescue first. Escape second. There is a curtain half-draped along a wall. She checks behind it and finds a table streaked with blood. It's empty. No time for regret. The door has a push-button lock. The door's handle bruises her hands. Through the sudden roar of blood in her ears, she becomes dimly aware that she is pounding the metal with her firsts. She forces herself to stop. No time for rage.   
  
Some part of her mind riots, mining genius out of nothing. Through the jumble of dizziness (boxes of cables, boxes of wire) and the stink of her own stale terror (light bulb means power) she scrambles through the room (insulated conductor) piecing together an escape through the locked door and (a stray synapse fires and laughs and laughs at old childhood games, thank you MacGyver and Richard Dean Anderson) this is how Bobby lives. This is how Bobby exists, layer on layer on layer, seeing everything with a god's perfect vision, from galaxy to microbe.  
  
The door explodes. When she blinks, the insides of her eyelids look like stars colliding.  
  
She takes the hook with her and runs down a hallway lined with furniture. A door at the end of the hall opens to her grab. There is a brick wall on the other side. It stops her for a second -- doors lead to exits; harried anger pushes at her chest -- but there is no time for it to matter. She dismisses it in a heartbeat and moves on. Despair slithers after her, jaws wide and hungry. She runs just ahead of it, racing to the finish line.  
  
 _Mine,_  it whispers, and moves fast. She can feel its breath at her heels. She speeds through the maze of passages, sensing Sebastian behind every shadow, waiting around every corner. Another door. She slaps it open and finds herself in another room. Sees a window, holes of light like teeth at the top of a high wall. She heads for it before she can think, forgetting gravity until she is staring up at it from below. It is a very high wall. Reality smashes into her from behind. Her stomach lurches into her throat. Her breath leaves her in a sob.  
  
 _Trapped,_  the voice says at her back. Fangs sink into her foot.   
  
No.  
  
 _It is too high. Victims do not escape._  
  
No.  
  
And  _no._  
  
The sick rumble of nausea is an acceptable trade for pride. Cop. She is a cop. She wraps herself around with her badge: recreates the weight of her gun at her hip and the dig of cuffs at her lower back. Checks herself in the mirror of her imagination and sees the armor and the absoluteness of authority.   
  
She is not a victim. She is a cop.   
  
A  _cop._  
  
There are shelves in the wall. There are rough patches where desperate fingers can grasp, if they are determined enough. She reaches for the lowest one through a blur of pain, mind burning with the promise of freedom. Her limbs are heavy. Her body is heavier. The hook sinks in deep; she almost expects to see blood pour out of the wall.  
  
 _It is too high,_  the voice says again.  
  
 _"Fuck you."_  She drags at the end of the hook, pulling herself up by its line. Her arms tremble visibly. She can feel the muscles failing her.   
  
 _Your arms are too weak._  
  
Painted stone is cool under her hands. Her foot scrapes onto the ledge. Slips. Fingers scrabble and recover. Almost there.  
  
 _There is no hope._  
  
On the ledge now. The wall stretches up above her. It looks endless. She digs her fingers in, feels a nail crack, and  _pulls._  Almost there.  
  
 _It's too far._  
  
 _"Fuck you,"_  she chants in silence, and makes it her mantra. Exults in it. Pulls by it. Drags herself up by it, inch by bloody inch.  _"Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyoufuckyou--"_ Almost there. Fresh air touches her face. Almost there. The smell of exhaust and something green and growing drifts by her. Black spots blossom at the edges of her vision.  
  
Almost there.   
  
 _You will fall._  
  
Almost there.   
  
 _You will fail._  
  
Almost there.  
  
 _No--_  
  
She reaches for the light.  
  
 _\--hope._


End file.
